Medical errors still claiming many lives
USAToday is reporting that a newly-release study shows as many as 98,000 Americans still die each year because of medical errors, despite an unprecedented focus on patient safety over the last five years.
From the story:
- Significant improvements have been made in some hospitals since the Institute of Medicine released a landmark report in 2000 that revealed many thousands of Americans die each year because of medical mistakes.
But nationwide, the pace of change is painstakingly slow, and the death rate has not changed much, according to the study in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
The researchers blame the complexity of health care systems, a lack of leadership, the reluctance of doctors to admit errors and an insurance reimbursement system that rewards errors - hospitals can bill for additional services needed when patients are injured by mistakes - but often will not pay for practices that reduce those errors.
"The medical community now knows what it needs to do to deal with the problem. It just has to overcome the barriers to doing it," says study co-author Lucian Leape of Harvard's School of Public Health.
To put this staggering number in perspective, look no further than to deaths involving firearms. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 762 accidental firearms-related deaths nationally in 2002, the most recent year statistics are available.
Don't the accidental deaths of 98,000 patients a year at the hands of physicians indicate that there are more important things the anti-gun American Medical Association should be spending its time on than attempting to promote various forms of gun control in the name of accident or "disease" prevention?
Not all physicians have come under the spell of the gun ban lobby. Those Ohioans fighting battles against a misinformed medical community would do well to consider the words of Dr. Timothy M. Billups, MD, FACEP, who submitted written testimony in support of House Bill 12, the legislation which became our OhioCCW law. Billups is a "residency trained, Board Certified Emergency Medicine physician" with "nine years of clinical experience in several Emergency Departments in the Cleveland and Akron areas".
For an even greater resource, check out Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws which is a collaborative effort by members of KeepAndBearArms.com.
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